This Friday, September 10th, art galleries will open their doors and the new art season officially begins.  The onslaught of openings can be a little overwhelming, even for veteran gallery goers.  There's no way you can possibly go to all of the openings and see everything, but you can try, since again this year there is a free "art trolley" that will run between the major gallery centers in the West Loop, River North, and Pilsen, sponsored by Art Chicago and Chicago Gallery News.

To help narrow the options down the staff writers for ArtSlant: Chicago are contributing their picks of the new season and recommendations beyond opening weekend for the must-see exhibitions coming up.

Abraham Ritchie, ArtSlant: Chicago Editor

Unless you have been living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears, you've heard of Luc Tuymans (looking like an artist, at left). But unless you're making regular trips to New York City or across the ocean, his work may as well be shown on Mars--I know I've had a difficult time seeing his art. Tuymans comes to Chicago via a major exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, opening October 2nd.  

When it comes to bucking the trend, Golden Gallery has been doing it and doing it well.  They opened their space on Newport Avenue just when the Great Recession was starting to raise its ugly head.  They've already kicked off their new season and third year of operating with  a show by Patricia Treib. And now they've opened the Golden Gallery Auxiliary Space.  This year's schedule promises an even wider focus, showing artists from Los Angeles and New York City.

ArtSlant Writer Erik Wenzel once called The Arts Club of Chicago "Chicago's most secretive major exhibition," and I agree with him.  This club has been around since 1916 and was the site of Picasso's first show in North America, but only recently got a website.  This season they've announced a show for Chris Ofili, opening September 28th, another major international artist who is hard to follow in the States and the Midwest.  Hopefully whatever they show Mayor Daley won't have cause to complain.

I was first introduced to the work of Wendy White in the kitchen of renowned apartment gallery 65GRAND.  The next time I saw her work was in the pages of Art in America. Andrew Rafacz Gallery opens up their new season on September 10th with a solo show of White's work titled, "French Cuts."  Watch for my review of it on ArtSlant: Chicago, September 21st.

Speaking of 65GRAND, they will return in September to kick off  the new season,  after last year's unfortunate run-in with the City of Chicago that eventually led to the gallery's closure due to lack of a business license and the inability to obtain one due to bureaucratic contradictions and ineptitude.  To inaugurate the new season, they will be showing the work of Brian Kapernekas, though a date has not yet been set for the opening.  Check ArtSlant for more information as it becomes available.

Erik Wenzel, Senior Staff Writer

Arturo Herrera & David Schutter at Tony Wight

September 10 – October 9

Herrera and Schutter are an odd pairing, one’s oeuvre is based on Disney cartoons, the other’s paintings are from art history that involve a lot of varnish and scumbling. But the more you think about it, the more it makes absolute sense for them to put on a show together. There will also be a catalogue with texts by Seth Brodsky, Anthony Elms, Darby English, Josiah McElheny and Diane Williams.

James Krone Trickle Down Ergonomics at Kavi Gupta

October 23 – December 4

I met James this summer in Berlin. We had some great late nights debates on a range of topics; Ad Reinhardt and his “ostensibly black paintings” was peppered through out.

Talk Video to Me at LVL3

Screening: 
 Sunday, September 19 at 6:00pm

The concept of examining how video is used as a language, how “found” or “appropriated” material becomes a personalized way of talking in people’s every day lives is interesting. Mediated communication is an incredibly relevant topic, one that can either be engrossing and productive, or just an excuse for childish tomfoolery.

Without You I'm Nothing: Art and Its Audience

November 20, 2010 - May 1, 2011 at Museum of Contemporary Art.

The MCA has strong holdings of Minimalism, up through Post-Minimalism, Conceptualism and all the way up to the contemporary: Carl Andre, Richard Serra, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Bruce Nauman, Gabriel Orozco, Liam Gillick and Aernout Mik among others. This exhibition is organized on the theme of work that confronts and relies on its audience.*

(image at left: Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (The End), 1990. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, restricted gift of Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz; Bernice and Kenneth Newberger Fund.)

Susan Phillipsz: We Shall Be All

December 11, 2010 - June 5, 2011 at MCA

A museum-wide sound installation incorporating text from Chicago’s turbulent political history commissioned for the collection accompanied by a gallery of earlier work.

Laura Letinsky at Donald Young

September

Letinsky’s last show of grim, complex still lifes took an interesting turn from earlier more purely formal and mostly white abstract investigations. She and monique meloche “broke up;” it will be interesting to see what’s next at Donald Young.

Corbett vs. Dempsey

Phil Hanson: The Subtle Diagram

September 10 - October 16

and

Christopher Wool: Sound on Sound

October 21 - November 27

I can’t help it; I love Hanson’s playful, colorful and slightly ridiculous painterly environments of diagrammed quotes. And Wool, the master of black and white austere punk abstraction, the master of blunt stenciled poetry.

*Edited 9/10/2010, 10 a.m.

Robyn Farrel Roulo, ArtSlant Staff Writer

For more of Robyn's picks, read her "Art off the Beaten Path."

Jitish Kallat: "Public Notice 3," Seeing Things Event @ The Art Institute of Chicago, September 11, 2010 at 6pm, Fullerton Hall, free

From the Art Institute: Jitish Kallat introduces Public Notice 3, a site specific installation on AIC’s Grand Staircase this Saturday.  The Indian artist explores the impact and connection of the First World Parliament of Religions held on September 11, 1893 and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  Kallat uses this connection to comment on history religious tolerance in last two centuries.

Shirin Neshat, Women Without Men (2009), Screening @ Block Cinema, Mary and Leigh Block Museum, Northwestern University, November 3^rd, tickets: $6

From the Block Museum: The film is presented in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition, “Shirin Neshat: Rapture”, September 24-December 12, 2010.  The installation delves into the artist’s thoughts on gender, Islam and Iran and the film is Neshet’s first feature film, recently awarded the Silver Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival.  For more information, visit the museum’s website.

Mia DiMeo, ArtSlant Staff Writer

THINGS TO BE NEXT TO: Charlotte Street Foundation and threewalls

As a former resident of Kansas City, and a current resident of Chicago, I'm interested in what the artists will present, and the collaborative aspect of this show. This show swaps spaces, starting this month at the Charlotte Street Foundation's la Esquina (an Urban Culture Project venue in Kansas City), and arriving at our own threewalls on November 5. Artists from both cities are tied by their creative reuse of everyday materials, and will join co-curators Kate Hackman (CSF) and Shannon Stratton (threewalls) in a panel discussion about the urban studio environment  in both cities, and its influence on artistic practices.

Richard Hawkins, The Art Institute of Chicago, Oct 22-Jan 16

Richard Hawkins. Dragonfly 2, 2009. Image courtesy of Greene Naftali Gallery, New York.

There's nothing like a good haunted house in October. This is the first American survey for Richard Hawkins, and concentrates on his collage-based works, so pin-up boy cutouts and history book photocollages are sure to be plentiful. But I hope one of his intricate sculptures, doll houses from hell with the slavishly intricate paint-crackled facade and tiny ironwork fences, also make it to this exciting show at the Art Institute.

(Image credits from top to bottom, unless otherwise noted: Luc Tuymans. Photo by Grant Delin. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York. Partial mock-up of Jitish Kallat's Public Notice 3.  Image used by permission.)